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Creamy smooth, mildly cheezy with a slightly acidic twang – Creme Cheeze is super versatile! Spread it on a bagel, stir it into hot pasta or pipe it into a cherry pepper. Just make sure you make it in advance as it will need to firm up in the fridge overnight.

Ingredients:

75 g of vegetable shortening

½ x block firm silken tofu (drained and cut into smaller pieces)

2 x tbsp. non-dairy yoghurt

1 x tsp apple cider vinegar

1 x tsp salt

1 x tbsp. nutritional yeast

Method:

On a low heat, completely melt the vegetable shortening in a small saucepan (but don’t allow to get too hot).

Take the pan off the hob and carefully add the tofu and mash into the shortening with a fork. It will sizzle but this is fine – the heat will help to take away some of the beany taste.

It’s my birthday at the end of the month so I’ve been trialing a few cakes. I want to try and persuade my work colleagues that vegans don’t just live off dust 😉

I’d heard very good things about the new Lotus Biscoff Spread (http://www.lotusbiscuits.co.uk/lotus-products/spreads/) via the Vegan Groups on Facebook, so when I saw a jar in the shops I couldn’t resist. Facebook was right, this stuff is gorrrrrgeous! So gorgeous in fact that I had to invent a cake to put it into. This one is definitely a contender for the birthday bake-off!

Chocolate and Lotus Spread cinnamon cake:

Ingredients:

¾ x cup

vegan marg

¾ x cup

sugar

3 x tsp

“No Egg” in 6 tbsp. water (http://www.orgran.com/products/174/)

4 x tbsp.

soya milk

1 x tsp

cider vinegar

1 1/3 x cups

self-raising flour

1 x tsp

baking powder

2 x tsp

cinnamon

2 x tbsp.

Lotus Biscoff spread (plus extra for decorating)

2 x tbsp.

Vegan friendly chocolate spread (have a Google search if you don’t already have a favorite brand!)

Method:

Preheat the oven to 180oC

Put the marg, sugar, No Egg, soya milk and cider vinegar into a bowl and whizz up until a pale batter is formed (it might look slightly “curdled” but don’t worry).

In another bowl, mix the flour, baking powder and cinnamon together.

Add the dry ingredients to the batter a spoonful at a time and fold in until thick and thoroughly mixed.

Pour half the mixture into a well-greased baking pan. Dollop in blobs of the Lotus Spread and chocolate spread. Pour the rest of the mixture on top and swizzle around using a skewer.

Bake for 35 – 45 minutes, depending on the dimensions of your tin. A skewer will come out of the centre of the cake clean once cooked. If the outside of the cake is browning too fast, wrap in foil.

Allow to cool in the tin for 10mins before turning out onto a wire rack.

Once completely cool, you can decorate. Using a butter knife, I alternated blobs of Lotus and chocolate spread to make a pretty pattern.

My favorite part of this cake is the slightly chewy crust and of course the Lotus – chocolate spread topping. Enjoy!

I love it when the hubby doesn’t need feeding. He’s not a massive pasta fan so it gives me the opportunity to binge on the stuff. He also hates cauliflower, mushrooms or anything green (with the exception of kale and spinach) so I usually take advantage of the opportunity to make my “green pasta bake”.

Kale, cauliflower, peas, broccoli, broad beans and mushrooms – whats not to love? Especially since it’s topped with a delicious “Parmesan”crust and devoid of any animal products.

I got two portions out of the following recipe (one has gone into the freezer), but you could easily feed four people if you bulk it out with a nice side salad or some garlic bread.

Green pasta bake recipe:

Ingredients:

Sauce

½ head large cauliflower

½ x cup chopped kale

1 x small onion

2 x tsp minced garlic

1 x tbsp olive oil

½ x medium red chilli pepper

1 x stock cube

Salt and pepper to taste (I prefer not to add salt).

Veggies, pasta and mushrooms:

½ x cup peas

1 x cup broccoli

½ x cup broad beans

3 x cups sliced mushrooms

1 ½ x cups pasta shells (other pasta shapes are fine but you may need to alter the quantity).

Toppings

– Enough plain soya yogurt and breadcrumbs to cover the top of the pasta bake (depends on the size and depth of your baking dish).

Break the cauliflower into florets and add to a pan of cold water. Crumble in the stock cube and bring the water to a boil. Continue to heat until the cauliflower is tender.

Whilst the cauliflower is cooking, chop the onion and fry in the olive oil along with garlic and chilli pepper. Fry for a few minutes before adding the kale. Once the onion is soft and translucent, turn off the heat.

Using a slotted spoon, remove the cauliflower from the stock and put into a liquidizer along with the onion, garlic, chilli, kale and any oil that’s left in the pan. Add two cups of the stock and whizz until you have a thick, smooth, creamy green sauce.

Fill a medium sized pan half full with water and bring to the boil. Add the pasta. Once the pasta begins to soften, add the broccoli, peas and broad beans. Cook until the pasta is on the chewy-side of “el dente”. You don’t want to overcook any of the ingredients as the dish still needs to be baked. Drain.

I love nachos. But it makes me sad that I can never have them when we go out anymore. Well I could, but I would have to ask for no
cheese, no sour cream and to be honest I probably wouldn’t even risk the guacamole (the bottled, un-refrigerated stuff usually contains dairy). So if a veg*n chilli isn’t available on the menu, that would leave me with chips and maybe some tomato salsa. Hmpft.

1 x tin black turtle beans – drained (you can also use red kidney, but I’m not a big fan)

4 x mushrooms (quartered)

1 x tin chopped tomatoes

1 x cup grated veggies* (optional)

2 x cups frozen soya mince

2 x tbsp tomato ketchup

1 x tsp soy sauce

Juice of one lime

Black pepper to taste

*I always have a bowl of grated veggies in my fridge, usually consisting of any combination of carrot, white cabbage, red cabbage, celeriac, suede etc. This comes in so incredibly useful for bulking up meals – it can be a side, part of a salad, sandwich filler, a base for soup or can easily be turned into coleslaw by adding some vegan mayo.

Method:

Heat up the oil in a large frying pan and add the onion. Fry until translucent and soft.

Add the pepper and continue cooking until soft.

Add the garlic, chilli and fresh tomatoes and cook until heated through. Keep stirring to prevent the garlic and chilli from burning.

Add the tomato puree, dried herbs, smoked paprika and sugar and continue to cook and stir until the sugar has dissolved.

Add the black beans, mushrooms and grated veggies and cook for around 2 minutes before adding the tin of chopped tomatoes.

Cook until simmering.

Add the soy sauce, ketchup and soya mince and keep cooking until the mince has completely defrosted and heated through. Add water if the chilli seems too dry.

Take off the heat and stir in the lime juice and black pepper if using.

Tip: As with most tomato based dishes, this chilli is best if left to cool for a few hours (or better still, overnight) so that the flavours have chance to develop. You will need to reheat however before adding to the nachos.

Eazy Cheeze sauce

I’ve seen a few cheeze sauces knocking around the internet which use carrot and potato as a base. This is my version but I quick
Google search will bring up many more!

Ingredients:

1 x large carrot (peeled)

2 x small potatoes (peeled)

½ x cup nutritional yeast

½ x cup olive oil (don’t use virgin!)

½ x teaspoon mustard (or horseradish or wasabi)

½ x tsp black pepper

½ x cup soya milk

¼ x tsp garlic powder

½ x tbsp fresh lemon juice

¼ x tsp white miso paste

Method:

Pop the carrot and potatoes into a pan and cover with cold water. Bring to the boil and continue to heat until the soft enough to
mash.

Add the carrot, potatoes and all other ingredients to a food processor and whiz until smooth and uniform in colour. You may need to stop and scrape down the sides.

Transfer to a pan and heat until the sauce bubbles. Stir the whole time using a silicone spatula. Taste great cold or warm!

1. Arrange a layer of nacho chips onto a plate and pop under the grill just long enough for the edges to just start turning a pale golden brown. Don’t overdo or else they’ll burn during step 5.

2. Dollop a healthy serving of hot chilli onto the top of the nachos. I like to leave an outer ring of un-topped nachos for presentation purposes. Plus it makes the chips easier to pick up and dip.

3. Add spoonful’s of the eazy cheeze sauce onto the top of the chilli.

4. Add a nice melt-able vegan “cheese” of your choice onto the top.

5. Pop under the grill until the vegan cheese has melted, the cheese sauce has gone bubbly and the edges of the nachos have started to go brown.

6. Add blobs of vegan sour cream (I used Toffuti). If I’d have had some spare jalapeños to hand, I’d have added some of those as well. Same goes for avocado… live and learn!

7. Enjoy with a nice cold beer! I would very much like to recommend Innis and Gunn: http://www.innisandgunn.com – which is my all time favourite beer, even before I turned veg*n!

This recipe will comfortably create either 4 portions of nachos as an appetizer, or 2 healthy portions as a main meal. And if you
have any leftovers, you can stick them on a pizza base and have an ultimate nacho pizza – hell yes!!!

Remembering back to my childhood days l couldn’t resist turning these little gems into ‘butterfly’ cakes and I’m glad I did because I think they turned out super cute. I made these to take into work but didn’t tell people that they were devoid of eggs and dairy. They went down very well and people were still talking about them the next day!

I couldn’t find a recipe that I really liked the look of so I adapted several including a couple of non-vegan ones. I’m glad to say that I was very happy with the results. Rich, moist (hate that word!) and well and truly sticky!

Add the icing sugar and blend on a medium speed on your mixer until completely combined (cover with a tea towel to prevent a cloud of icing sugar from covering your kitchen!)

Scrape down the bowl, add the vanilla extract and continue to blend for one more minute.

Assembly:

When the cupcakes are cooled – and not a moment sooner- use a teaspoon to carve a circular piece of cake out of the middle of the top of each. Keep the little circles safe as you’ll be cutting each in half to create the butterfly ‘wings’.

Next, add the caramel to the hole in each cake. I would recommend adding just a teaspoon’s worth to begin with to make sure there is enough to go around, then top up with whats left.

When you’re done being saucy, its time to add the buttercream. I used a piping bag to be posh. (Not that I looked posh as I got the bloomin’ stuff EVERYWHERE!)

Finally, position your wings into the buttercream and decorate with the caramel chips.

The next time someone tells me how they can’t understand why all vegans aren’t super skinny… I’m going to link them to this entry!! 🙂

They were dee-licious, even if the bacon was a little on the burnt side…

I’ve not had chance to go food shopping this week, so the left over Tofutti was about the only thing I had in my fridge. So in order not to starve, the following recipe was born.

Spicy, creamy, tangy, “cheesy” and satisfying, even the pasta-hating hubby enjoyed this dish. To me it tasted like a slightly nuttier, scrummier version of the tomato-mascarpone sauce you can buy in a pot from the chiller section in the supermarket. Only this one is vegan J

Spicy “mascarpone” and tomato
pasta recipe:

(Serves 2 – 4 depending on whether or not you serve with a side)

Ingredients:

1 x medium sized onion (chopped)

Handful of chopped peppers
(either red or mixed)

3 x garlic cloves (minced)

1 x tsp mustard seeds

1 x tsp dried mixed herbs

1 x tsp black pepper

½ tsp dried chilli flakes

3 x tbsp nutritional yeast

1/3 pack Toffuti vegan cream cheese (other brands are available but this one is superior in my opinion)

1 x tin tomatoes

1 x tbsp soya cream

Juice of ½ lemon

Method:

Get some whole-wheat spaghetti cooking according to the packet. When ready, drain and leave until the sauce is finished.

Heat up some oil in a pan. Fry the onions until translucent then throw in the peppers.

Add the garlic, mustard seeds, herbs, pepper, chili and yeast and keep stirring until the peppers start to go soft. Be careful not to burn as the sauce is quite dry at this stage.

Add the Toffuti and keep stirring until melted and mixed in.

And the tin of tomatoes and stir until thoroughly mixed in. Continue to heat until the sauce begins to thicken and simmer.

Stir in the cream followed by the lemon juice.

Stir in the spaghetti and toss until nicely coated.

Serve up with a generous sprinkling of crispy nutritional yeast flakes on top.

I served mine with broad beans cooked with lemon juice
and mint. Protein city!

And the best part? It tasted even better the next day cold for my lunch ♥